Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Quite a few disciples were seeking help from Yang Qi because of how he had offered it with no strings attached.

Whether or not people sided with him wasn’t extremely important to him. However, he wanted to take advantage of the situation to win some hearts. As for the potential retribution on the part of Elder Brother Yue, he wasn’t worried. Even if a god came to cause problems, he could handle the situation.

Furthermore, he didn’t let it affect his cultivation.

He continued with his daily routine, seeking enlightenment from the sheepskin scroll and Mahātmā Jade, and learning profound things by studying the essence of the god world.

His daoist techniques were becoming more refined, especially his Civilization Founding Grand Magic and imperial-heaven pre-beginning powers. He was now able to assess the psychic scales of others, and even see their godpower as it flowed through them.

And he could now confirm that his own psychic scale was in the thousands. He wasn't sure what ordinary gods had for psychic scales, but he was sure that they couldn’t compare to him.

His enlightenment of the Sage Monarch Grand Magic was growing more refined. He could now make godnotes that lasted for much longer periods of time, and the quality of the godstones he could create was increasing by the day.

He waved his hand and a fist-sized godstone appeared, glittering with bright light, it almost looked as if it contained a growing world of lightning. Godstones of this quality were considered a rarity.

In fact, he was almost in the position of being able to create godstones that contained god embryos. That was a mark of the Paramount level.

He was just on the verge of breaking through to a level of will that could devastate almost all other types of gods.

Long ago, Yang Qi’s immortal-slaying clone had started out as an immortal embryo in a godly-grade spirit stone. [1]

However, godly-grade spirit stones were still just spirit stones. Spirit stones were very different from immortal stones, which were in turn very different from godstones.

The highest quality godstones could only be produced from mines in the god world and were never seen in the impure lands. And the power within them was the only thing that could activate and operate god formations. Godstones of the highest quality would eventually produce god embryos, which were expressions of god vitality and life force. Such things were very rarely seen in mines.

Taking a deep breath, Yang Qi opened the Great Classic of God Ordainment and flipped to the section about services rendered to the sect.

‘If you turn in an imperial caliber godstone, you get ten merit points. Hand in a godstone with a god embryo, and you can get five hundred!’ From that it was obvious how rare god embryos were.

In the House of God Ordainment, even just one merit point could be exchanged for many things. In fact, the foremen of the mines would generally be rewarded with a single merit point for meeting their yearly quota.

In the impure lands, spirit stones and immortal stones were classified as such: low-, mid-, high-, supreme-, royal-, imperial-, sovereign-, sagely-, heavenly-, and godly-grade.

But in the god world, godstones were described differently.

Considering that the Great Classic of God Ordainment contained all sorts of information about the god world, it was a given that it described godstones. The ranking went as followed: shoddy, normal, greater, noble, imperial, holy, and perfect.

As for the stones Yang Qi had originally created, they were greater godstones.

His godsands were worth a single noble caliber godstone each, which was why the Primeval Pavilion had been so interested in them. The stones he could create now, with the rumbling of thunder in them, were imperial caliber godstones, which his mine couldn’t even produce.

The type that had god embryos were holy caliber godstones, which Yang Qi still couldn’t produce.

As for a perfect caliber godstone, he had no idea what they were like. They were things that Paramount Gods would use to fuel their god kingdoms.

The Great Classic of God Ordainment didn't contain information about cultivation techniques. However, it had a lot of general information about the god world, describing its geography, the demonlings and fiend-devils that could be found there, and even details about the climate and weather. It also listed the rare types of treasures and medicinal ingredients that existed.

It was essentially an encyclopedia.

Most of the information wouldn’t be useful to ordinary disciples. However, Yang Qi was a veritable dictionary of martial arts, and of all the things he lacked, techniques weren’t even on the list. Therefore, information about the god world was very valuable to him, and it even helped with the God Legion Seal and his Sage Monarch Grand Magic.

Because of that, he spent a lot of time studying the Great Classic of God Ordainment.

Three months passed in a flash.

Of the fifty-five other foremen, about thirty had allied themselves with Yang Qi. And for safety’s sake, they had already moved all of their godstone reserves, as well as their miners and disciples, over to Mine Thirteen. As for their own mines, they had ceased operations.

Demonling attacks had become a daily problem. They would appear out of nowhere, kill some miners, then unpredictably disappear. Although it wasn’t hard to kill the invading demonlings, they never seemed to stop coming. And there were some demonlings who could tunnel through the ground and launch attacks in the deeper parts of the mines, making things even worse. There were also fierce bird-like demonlings that would attack from above and whose claws could easily crush the heads of humans into nothing. Miners were dying on a daily basis.

The demonlings in the god world had to be extremely fierce to survive, and thus attacked viciously, even using invincible divine abilities.

The repeated incursions seemed to confirm that there would be a large-scale invasion soon. It was with great fanfare that all of the foremen went around making preparations for defense.

Yang Qi was continuously bolstering his own defensive spell formations. As for the disciples under his protection, they could see the demonlings rushing forth in attack. But when they got to within about three thousand meters of the shield, streams of sword energy would fly out and slash them to bits. More often than not, their blood would evaporate before it even hit the ground.

There were no subterranean attacks.

The ground was so strong thanks to the spell formation that the tunneling demonlings had no way to break through, making the ground a very safe place to be.

Occasionally, smaller demonlings would try attacking on foot, but the sword energy would slash them to pieces before they could get close. In short, it was impossible for any demonlings to get close to Mine Thirteen.

Unfortunately, the demonlings didn’t fear death, and their numbers only grew as time went by.

**

Elder Brother Yue sat in a hall in Mine One. Behind him stood an elder with a long beard, flowing hair, and skin that glowed like gold. Obviously, he was a Lesser God.

“Boundless Gods Defend the Body; Overturn the Cosmos and Invert the Sun and Moon; Boundless Will of the Preheaven Dragon. Nine-Dragons Water-Breathing Heavenly-Doctor God Art!”

Crash!

Nine dragons appeared from behind him, spitting out water that became misty clouds. An intense medicinal aroma filled the area as the clouds entered Elder Brother Yue’s meridians and sea of energy, healing him completely.

Cracking sounds rang out as Elder Brother Yue began to thrum with a powerful aura.

“I’ll never forgive you for hurting me so badly, Yang Qi!” he growled, hands clenched into fists as he shot to his feet.

“What exactly happened here?” the elder asked, his expression grim and full of killing intent. “You were obviously beaten very badly. I heard about the demonling invasion, so I snuck over here to help you. You’re a member of the Yue Clan, so we can’t have you dying out here. But if word were to spread about this, it would make things difficult for you in the future. You would never become the next patriarch of the clan if everyone knew I was helping you. That’s why I can’t take action myself.”

“It’s like this, Uncle,” Elder Brother Yue said, then went into a detailed explanation. When he was finished, he said, “I can’t believe Yang Qi is that strong. He beat me with one move! In fact, I suspect he's actually stronger than he’s letting on.”

“What? There’s a foreman of that level here?” The elder was clearly shocked. “I’ll look into it and see if it’s as you say.”

A mirror formed of godpower appeared in his hand, into which he sent a pearl of energy. Instantly, a scene appeared in the mirror.

He saw all the mines, many of which were empty, other than the roaming demonlings in them.

As for Mine Thirteen, it was surrounded by a rampart of swords, and even the air above it was covered by an energy shield.

Any demonlings who got close, even the crawling type that resembled spiders, centipedes, or scorpions, would all die.

“What a powerful spell formation!” the elder said, visibly shocked. “Not even I could create something like that.”

1. I think chapter 403 is the best reference for the information about the clone starting out as an immortal embryo.